(Little) Things that annoy you in Pokémon

[Esserise]

I think Mythical Pokémon are generally at their best when the game shows us what their unique traits and powers can do.

I give Mew a pass in Gen 1 because it wasn’t even supposed to be in the game, and Crystal probably wasn’t technically capable of doing much of interest with Celebi’s time travel ability, but from Gen 3 onward, I grade on a much harsher curve. Like, how do you have a Pokémon that can grant wishes once every thousand years, or a Pokémon that can grant victory to whoever it allies with, and not tell a story about that?

The post-Gen 3 Mythical Pokémon that I actually like the handling of have been Deoxys (I could get into the weeds with caveats on this one, but let’s just say ORAS gets most of the credit), Shaymin, Arceus (and although the Sinjoh Ruins event was really cool, I’m not entirely sure I’d have included Arceus in this group until Legends), Meltan, and Pecharunt.

Ones that I think get, I guess, a decent showing, albeit far from ideal, are Celebi in HGSS, Keldeo in general, and Hoopa in ORAS (thanks to the portal rings). I suppose I’ve got an honorable mention for Manaphy, too — they’ve never done much to display its unique properties, but they at least come up with amusingly complicated ways to obtain it that remain memorable to me.

What they’ve done for Darkrai just barely scrapes by into passable territory, but aside from that and the above examples, I think pretty much every other main series portrayal of a Mythical Pokémon has been severely lacking.

 

[ant4456]

the problem with mythicals as a concept is that they are fundamentally defined by how little screen time they get.

diegetically, having long or even just having real questlines to get mythicals goes against the very concept and foundation laid out by Mew, which intentionally or not it was one, Pokemon that explicitly aren't really super developed into the plot or world and are just elusive Pokemon you may see for a short while.

when we see mythicals in media outside of the games, they don't go far off from the tree unless it's a movie dedicated to them, and even in those it's generally the case that they simply find the mythical where it naturally belongs, a pixie that only shows itself if it cares to

that's why I like Celebi and think that that's the perfect iteration of the idea. I don't think Darkrai is actually a well-designed mythical quest because it honestly matters too much, it's actively showing its presence rather than being something that is more passive. If we think of the world in layers of knowing, mythical Pokemon should be something that could always be there, even if it isn't. A Schrodinger's Cat style of Pokemon. Mew could be anywhere. It could be between these trees, under this truck, it could be right behind you - and I think that's honestly more interesting than making them just go "I fuck with humans and that is how you find me" because that should just be the role of legendaries, damnit.

I think that "mythical screentime" should come from players moving past where the mythical ends up. ie. imagine if you went to Liberty Garden in the main story, or it was even like a place you passed through to an important area, and then Victini would show up in the event. I think that sells the concept significantly better.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I think Mythical Pokémon are generally at their best when the game shows us what their unique traits and powers can do.

I give Mew a pass in Gen 1 because it wasn’t even supposed to be in the game, and Crystal probably wasn’t technically capable of doing much of interest with Celebi’s time travel ability, but from Gen 3 onward, I grade on a much harsher curve. Like, how do you have a Pokémon that can grant wishes once every thousand years, or a Pokémon that can grant victory to whoever it allies with, and not tell a story about that?

The post-Gen 3 Mythical Pokémon that I actually like the handling of have been Deoxys (I could get into the weeds with caveats on this one, but let’s just say ORAS gets most of the credit), Shaymin, Arceus (and although the Sinjoh Ruins event was really cool, I’m not entirely sure I’d have included Arceus in this group until Legends), Meltan, and Pecharunt.

Ones that I think get, I guess, a decent showing, albeit far from ideal, are Celebi in HGSS, Keldeo in general, and Hoopa in ORAS (thanks to the portal rings). I suppose I’ve got an honorable mention for Manaphy, too — they’ve never done much to display its unique properties, but they at least come up with amusingly complicated ways to obtain it that remain memorable to me.

What they’ve done for Darkrai just barely scrapes by into passable territory, but aside from that and the above examples, I think pretty much every other main series portrayal of a Mythical Pokémon has been severely lacking.

Y'all are pretty much asking for Mythicals to become regular Legendaries lmao

 

[Esserise]

Y'all are pretty much asking for Mythicals to become regular Legendaries lmao

Well… kinda, I suppose, but my point is more that I feel like Game Freak don’t really do a good job of portraying the qualities of individual Mythical Pokémon that are supposed to be what makes them unique.

Like, Jirachi is a wish-granter, which is an ability with incredibly potency (both literally and narratively), but the games have depicted it granting a total of 0 wishes. I don’t think you necessarily need to integrate it into the main storyline in order to accomplish that, but having a Jirachi (or having whatever the license to go catch it is) should at least precipitate some kind of event where it can demonstrate that ability. But for all that the games thus far have shown us, Jirachi may as well just be a weird Clefairy. Just a small star-shaped pixie said to be from space.

To put it another way, the Azure Flute event for Arceus is just straight ass. There’s nothing fun or interesting about climbing a staircase to go do the same old RNG dance until Arceus decides to stay in the ball, and it does absolutely nothing to meaningfully illustrate that this is the Pokémon Creator God. Whereas the HGSS event, despite not requiring you to go and catch Arceus yourself, does so much more to show you why this is the Pokémon that is worshiped as a creator deity.

That’s really what I mainly want — for the lore of Mythical Pokémon to be shown to us via cool scenes or events rather than just having no relevance to anything beyond being described by a couple of sentences in the Pokédex.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think Mythical Pokémon are generally at their best when the game shows us what their unique traits and powers can do.

I give Mew a pass in Gen 1 because it wasn’t even supposed to be in the game, and Crystal probably wasn’t technically capable of doing much of interest with Celebi’s time travel ability, but from Gen 3 onward, I grade on a much harsher curve. Like, how do you have a Pokémon that can grant wishes once every thousand years, or a Pokémon that can grant victory to whoever it allies with, and not tell a story about that?

The post-Gen 3 Mythical Pokémon that I actually like the handling of have been Deoxys (I could get into the weeds with caveats on this one, but let’s just say ORAS gets most of the credit), Shaymin, Arceus (and although the Sinjoh Ruins event was really cool, I’m not entirely sure I’d have included Arceus in this group until Legends), Meltan, and Pecharunt.

Ones that I think get, I guess, a decent showing, albeit far from ideal, are Celebi in HGSS, Keldeo in general, and Hoopa in ORAS (thanks to the portal rings). I suppose I’ve got an honorable mention for Manaphy, too — they’ve never done much to display its unique properties, but they at least come up with amusingly complicated ways to obtain it that remain memorable to me.

What they’ve done for Darkrai just barely scrapes by into passable territory, but aside from that and the above examples, I think pretty much every other main series portrayal of a Mythical Pokémon has been severely lacking.

I'm struggling to think of how Keldeo has been done well. In Unova, it basically has the same event in both games - the three Swords appear either in spirit or in person and teach it the special move.

Which is... fine, I guess, but not really that much of a good showing. It's basically on par with each of XY's deathly dull "oh, you have this mythical? Stand there while I talk at you about it" events. At least Genesect gets you a battle with an NPC. But Keldeo's events don't really factor into anything larger - the lore in BW is nice, but ultimately isn't essential to the central plot.

Meloetta's isnt a whole lot better tbh, but they're basically the same thing. The best event any Pokemon in the Unova games gets is Zoroark (by far).

 

[ant4456]

mythical pokemon by events

also lowkey i dont even like half the events in C tier they just at least did something with them

 

[Bakugames]

yeah i dont get why pecha is a mythical, other than "we needed to have a mythical in this generation". it feels like they made it more with the intent of being another legendary event like every other legendary in this game, but were asked to turn it into a mystery gift event.

i know thats kinda conspiracy theory thinking but man, its even called the epilogue of the game. i swear they wrote this as part of the native dlc story

 

[CynicalGiant]

Honestly pretty confused that Volcanion even is a mythical, it feels like it should be a legendary on par with Heatran.

 

[girazard]

Feels barely on par with either legends or mythical to be brutally honest. It's lore is that it can blow away mountains? Cool, my Tyranitar does the exact same thing.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

A Pokemon being "mythical" in-universe seems less about power or scarcity and more about obscurity. Marshadow's Sun Pokedex entry spells it out pretty well:

"Able to conceal itself in shadows, it never appears before humans, so its very existence was the stuff of myth."

Pokemon that time have largely forgotten, and the few people who are even aware of them doubt they even exist.

"Hey you know the story of The Three Musketeers? Did you know there's actually a fourth musketeer?"
Be honest, before Gen 5, most of y'all did not know D'Artagnan existed. Hence, Keldeo is a mythical Pokemon.


What I'm saying is that Giratina should totally have been a mythical Pokemon.

 

[Worldie]

- Speaking of which, Tinkaton having 75 Base Attack. GF really gave it a 160BP Steel-type move and got shook. It's not even a great offensive type AND they made Bloodmoon Ursaluna later! Commit to it!

I'm 100% confident this was intentional.

Ursaluna BM and Tinkaton are 2 very distinct mons, one is a "almost legendary" (it's a variation of an already extinct or almost extinct pokemon that lived for centuries so developed insane powers), the other is just your average paldean local.

The design behind Gigaton Hammer was very likely "we want this mon to pack a singular big punch but nothing else, let's make a insanely busted move that can't be spammed and then give it a wide utility movepool for the off turn". It's actually not too different from Azumarill gaining Huge Power but being limited by its horrible attack stat.
Stupidly busted signature move and stat combination are generally reserved for legendary or legendary-adjacent mons, Tinkaton aint one of them.
(Even Kingambit's arguably busted ability in the end isn't even that important when it comes to actual competitive, as VGC and BSS have too little mon count to make it worth using over Defiant instead)

 

[CynicalGiant]

I'm 100% confident this was intentional.

I agree that it was intentional, in addition to the Tinkaton and Huge Power examples, they've also done it with Pokemon like Araquanid

has low offensive stats but it has the Water Bubble ability (doubles base power of Water moves) that makes its Atk and SAtk deceptively high only when it uses Water moves. Liquidation more than triples in power effectively and unlike Gigaton Hammer you can just spam it over and over.

They obviously try to balance stats around their specific ability or move gimmicks, and also just back on the topic of Tinkaton I'm glad they didn't give it a real attack stat because Fairy/Steel is one of the most insane type combinations in the game lmao.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Mythical Pokemon in Japanese are referred to as "illusory" Pokemon. Generally, the distinct thing about them from even Legendary Pokemon is that they are extremely rare to the point that they are utterly elusive, hence the title "illusory" in Japanese. They are so rare and unseen that their existence is unknown to most people, and some are revered as deities like Celebi and Jirachi, but their rarity is such that it is generally questioned in-universe if they even exist because so few people ever get to see them, as DrPumpkinz pointed out a few posts before me.

Pecharunt being a mythical aligns with this idea. In-universe its role in the story of the Loyal Three and Ogerpon was completely forgotten about, and no one knows that it ever existed. While the Loyal Three are falsely revered as heroes and Ogerpon as a villain, Pecharunt despite being the Loyal Three's leader faded into obscurity never to be remembered by anyone, except for maybe Carmine and Kieran's grandfather (and their bloodline as a whole) who might have had a vague idea that it existed, but even he didn't allude to it. When you do unlock the event that leads to the Mochi Mayhem epilogue, it turns out Pecharunt was asleep as it's been since the incident, but it was just sitting on some random vendor's stall and became referred to as the "Never-Rotting Peach", no one even realizing it was a Pokemon. Which ends up shocking everyone when it actually wakes up and starts using mysterious mochi to possess everyone in Mossui Town, and even after you and Kieran stop its little mischief and shit nobody really knows what was up with it. Carmine has a suspicion afterward that it's related to the Loyal Three but admits without information she can't draw a definitive conclusion as to what its deal actually is.

But yeah the general idea behind mythicals, and why they are often locked behind events and unobtainable by normal means, is that they are so elusive and rare that in-universe nobody really knows they exist, or if they do, they've probably never met any individual of such Pokemon in their lifetime.

 

[ant4456]

Mythical Pokemon in Japanese are referred to as "illusory" Pokemon. Generally, the distinct thing about them from even Legendary Pokemon is that they are extremely rare to the point that they are utterly elusive, hence the title "illusory" in Japanese. They are so rare and unseen that their existence is unknown to most people, and some are revered as deities like Celebi and Jirachi, but their rarity is such that it is generally questioned in-universe if they even exist because so few people ever get to see them, as DrPumpkinz pointed out a few posts before me.

Pecharunt being a mythical aligns with this idea. In-universe its role in the story of the Loyal Three and Ogerpon was completely forgotten about, and no one knows that it ever existed. While the Loyal Three are falsely revered as heroes and Ogerpon as a villain, Pecharunt despite being the Loyal Three's leader faded into obscurity never to be remembered by anyone, except for maybe Carmine and Kieran's grandfather (and their bloodline as a whole) who might have had a vague idea that it existed, but even he didn't allude to it. When you do unlock the event that leads to the Mochi Mayhem epilogue, it turns out Pecharunt was asleep as it's been since the incident, but it was just sitting on some random vendor's stall and became referred to as the "Never-Rotting Peach", no one even realizing it was a Pokemon. Which ends up shocking everyone when it actually wakes up and starts using mysterious mochi to possess everyone in Mossui Town, and even after you and Kieran stop its little mischief and shit nobody really knows what was up with it. Carmine has a suspicion afterward that it's related to the Loyal Three but admits without information she can't draw a definitive conclusion as to what its deal actually is.

But yeah the general idea behind mythicals, and why they are often locked behind events and unobtainable by normal means, is that they are so elusive and rare that in-universe nobody really knows they exist, or if they do, they've probably never met any individual of such Pokemon in their lifetime.

I still don't like this kind of mythical because again, to me, a mythical encounter should be significantly less important.

A mythical Pokemon encounter to me should be Celebi in GSC. Perfect. The more "story" it is and the more people that know it, the worse. And when you have it be like "Well no shit you didn't find it it's actually on Event Island which you couldn't get to before" I think it's also just less interesting.

That's why I don't think Keldeo or Pecharunt should be mythicals despite technically fitting into the criteria if not just being inaccessible in the region, they have too much of a Story. Diegetically, they feel like they have more presence than some legendary Pokemon because they have actual events while a lot of legendaries you just find.

I also hate Mythicals that are the end of a trio as just a concept. Yeah you can say no one remembered Pecharunt, but that doesn't feel very satisfying IMO.

 

[pika pal]

For Mythicals, I think story and a place in the setting is fine and even to be expected. What distinguishes it for me is how widespread that story is within the universe vs a Legendary. To go over what I think is a good and what I think is a bad example for some comparison (mostly going off main game depictions because Anime Movie stories and loose continuity are a mess alongside Spin-offs)

• Darkrai is a Mythical Pokemon I like for having a clear lore and place for existing within the World, characterized by the fact that the world's people have little idea or frame of reference for it. You the PLAYER understand it with clarity (especially when Arceus lays it out in Platinum's Encounter), but to the characters it's just an enigma on Newmoon Island that they're not even clear is a Pokemon specifically. There is a widely unknown story that the Player/Meta viewer learns but remains just an unwitnessed Myth diegetically.
• On the other hand, I very much dislike something like Diancie which is known by someone to the point they can have people roaming around searching for information about it and evidently not be met with "what the heck are you talking about?" This makes it sound like a standard Legendary in a sense, as it's well known enough to believe is real and search for rather than write off as a tale or a phenomena.
• There's also odd cases like Zeraora or Zarude where they don't really have any major story going for them, known or unknown to the world, and just feel like they're Mythical as a marketing ploy very transparently. These feel weak in a different manner because there isn't really even a "Myth" for the Mythical, and it almost brings into question how arbitrary the "Legendary" status is for anything besides "specifically 1-off/divine" Pokemon like Groudon/Kyogre or Xerneas/Yveltal/Zygarde as opposed to depicted-multiples like the Kanto Birds. At that point what makes them different from "mundane" species with great power or folklore/urban legends of their own like Banette being an animated Doll or Volcarona worshipped as a Sun God?

Pecharunt as our most recent example kind of falls in a weird grey zone for me: the Story it's connected to is a very well known one with the Loyal Three (I wasn't clear if the story TPC shared on Youtube is referenced or known in the games themselves or was just audience context), but Pecharunt itself is so obscure that no one remembers it existing nor connects it with certainty once it does make itself known again.

Ultimately I think Mythicals benefit most from having a clearly defined story or lore that the world itself doesn't/barely knows anything about even on the level of a "probably made-up" dismissal.

 

[Samtendo09]

• There's also odd cases like Zeraora or Zarude where they don't really have any major story going for them, known or unknown to the world, and just feel like they're Mythical as a marketing ploy very transparently. These feel weak in a different manner because there isn't really even a "Myth" for the Mythical, and it almost brings into question how arbitrary the "Legendary" status is for anything besides "specifically 1-off/divine" Pokemon like Groudon/Kyogre or Xerneas/Yveltal/Zygarde as opposed to depicted-multiples like the Kanto Birds. At that point what makes them different from "mundane" species with great power or folklore/urban legends of their own like Banette being an animated Doll or Volcarona worshipped as a Sun God?

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Zeraora and Zarude, but for what determines the “Legendary” status, it also has to do with their power both in-lore (not PokéDex for the more mundane species, as those can be considered as dubious given it’s mostly “tell, don’t show”) and in-game, as they are clearly a cut above the ”mundane” mons like even Volcarona in terms of power level while maintaining an unshakable reputation. For example, the reason why Mewtwo is classified as a Legendary is not just because of it’s immense power in display, but it could also be responsible for an unseen past event thay ingrained in people’s mind for a long time.

The reason why Ultra Beasts and most Paradox Pokémon aren’t classed as Legendary nor Mythical is because of the fact that there are a lot of things that are not known about them yet even as we discover them even if we know their lore, while also the fact that more than the player know about these species to the point they are not as illusiory as Mythical Pokémon. Koraidon and Miraidon are exceptions due to not just their in-lore and in-game power exceeding fellow Paradox Pokémon, but also the fact that they got discovered quickly and make history, though without people realizing what they really are, hence their Legendary status.

And of course, there is always “show, don’t tell”. If you want to prove this Pokémon is Legendary, prove it by displaying their incredible power even by Pokémon’s standards and show history about them.

 

[Esserise]

Which is... fine, I guess, but not really that much of a good showing. It's basically on par with each of XY's deathly dull "oh, you have this mythical? Stand there while I talk at you about it" events. At least Genesect gets you a battle with an NPC. But Keldeo's events don't really factor into anything larger - the lore in BW is nice, but ultimately isn't essential to the central plot.

I put Keldeo alongside Celebi in HGSS and Hoopa in ORAS, ‘cause they all at least kinda illustrate their lore. In this regard, I think Keldeo benefits from its lore being relatively simple: It’s an orphaned successor to the Musketeers, which is shown by them teaching it a special, upgraded version of their shared signature move. Admittedly, that isn’t really much, but for a concept as straightforward as Keldeo, I don’t think it necessarily needs to be.

Like, take Volcanion for instance. Its lore, such as it is, is also pretty uncomplicated. It’s basically a cryptid that is only ever glimpsed through the haze of steam that it surrounds itself with, which I think is a perfectly adequate explanation for why it would be so rarely observed, and also ties into it being a Fire/Water type.

I don’t necessarily need to see it blow a mountain to rubble like the stories about it describe, but at least give me a tangible idea of what this Pokémon is like or what its relationship to others is. They don’t tell ancient stories about Volcanion being delivered by the postal service to customers at pharmacy chains, but that is genuinely the only experience that receiving a Volcanion in the games has ever offered players.

You the PLAYER understand it with clarity (especially when Arceus lays it out in Platinum's Encounter)

As an aside, this is a little nitpick that has always kind of puzzled me: Why do people always say it is Arceus speaking in that moment? To me it always made more sense to think that, if anything, it was Cresselia, since she’s a Psychic-type that lives next door and is actually the one who deals with Darkrai on a regular basis.

 

[Yung Dramps]

There's ways to keep something obscure and mysterious while actually having meaningful game design attached to it. Blueberry Academy Meloetta, LA Manaphy and Meltan's introduction in Go are literally exactly this! There's a very clear difference between solving a cryptic overworld puzzle and just being handed an item to go to a place to get a guy. Arceus in DPPt didn't just suck because it was event-gated, it sucked because the whole encounter comes down to climbing a flight of stairs and doing the same stupid lottery you've been doing since the Game Boy but now against Literal Canon God. Genuinely so pathetic that it would've been preferable to treat Arceus like the Original Dragon, an unobtainable creature that is only ever alluded to in old mythological texts

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Mythicals shouldn't exist as a class, and they should be treated as regular legendaries.

 

[pika pal]

As an aside, this is a little nitpick that has always kind of puzzled me: Why do people always say it is Arceus speaking in that moment? To me it always made more sense to think that, if anything, it was Cresselia, since she’s a Psychic-type that lives next door and is actually the one who deals with Darkrai on a regular basis.

My mindset is that the game seems loosely inclined to have you encounter Cresselia before this moment since Darkrai is a payoff to the Child having Nightmares, meaning she's either Roaming Sinnoh or captured by then, while release order of Mythical Items (assuming the Azure Flute ever came out) would suggest Arceus is still beyond the player's encounter or grasp at this point, while also having a position that would explain omniscient speaking suddenly cutting in, while also talking about Fullmoon Island in a manner suggesting distance rather than residing there itself. The lines address Darkrai in a way that recounts it as a history more than describing just the present.

tl;dr It'd be weird for you to have met Cresselia but only been told by her now, as opposed to alluding to a party you may meet later while foreshadowing their all-seeing nature/knowledge.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I'm 100% confident this was intentional.

Ursaluna BM and Tinkaton are 2 very distinct mons, one is a "almost legendary" (it's a variation of an already extinct or almost extinct pokemon that lived for centuries so developed insane powers), the other is just your average paldean local.

The design behind Gigaton Hammer was very likely "we want this mon to pack a singular big punch but nothing else, let's make a insanely busted move that can't be spammed and then give it a wide utility movepool for the off turn". It's actually not too different from Azumarill gaining Huge Power but being limited by its horrible attack stat.
Stupidly busted signature move and stat combination are generally reserved for legendary or legendary-adjacent mons, Tinkaton aint one of them.
(Even Kingambit's arguably busted ability in the end isn't even that important when it comes to actual competitive, as VGC and BSS have too little mon count to make it worth using over Defiant instead)

Yeah, 95 Attack would be fine if they were that scared, 75 is borderline unusable.

If they wanted to balance it somehow, Rampardos is the blueprint. Big, BIG damage Head Smash with very, VERY noticeable flaws that hold it back.

Checks and balances only work if the design isn't actively undermined by them. Rampardos is AWFUL, but you can bet that Head Smash is going to do some serious damage. Because that was the design around it. Matter of fact, we do have a modern, legendary example to use as a comparison too. Calyrex-Ice. And mind you, Rock and Ice are great offensive types, Steel isn't.

There's hardly any excuse.

I agree that it was intentional, in addition to the Tinkaton and Huge Power examples, they've also done it with Pokemon like Araquanid
View attachment 723161
has low offensive stats but it has the Water Bubble ability (doubles base power of Water moves) that makes its Atk and SAtk deceptively high only when it uses Water moves. Liquidation more than triples in power effectively and unlike Gigaton Hammer you can just spam it over and over.

They obviously try to balance stats around their specific ability or move gimmicks, and also just back on the topic of Tinkaton I'm glad they didn't give it a real attack stat because Fairy/Steel is one of the most insane type combinations in the game lmao.

That's the thing, Water Bubble, besides all the other bells and whistles, is effectively Huge Power for Water moves. Those aren't designed with checks and balances in mind, Gigaton Hammer is one move which does have a drawback built into it.

It's actually a similar design principle to the mons that did get Huge/Pure Power except the Megas that got them. Since *all* of their moves, including future ones are getting a massive buff, then base stat adjustments are necessary to keep them in check.

This is not the case for Tinkaton. The design is clearly "BIG HAMMER TIME! BONK! WHACK-A-MOLE WITH CORVIKNIGHTS!" but when you actually get it, you find out only one of its moves deals respectable damage and its stats are...

Pretty bad tbh.

Weak abilities, middling stats, great typing, and a fairly decent movepool, but those don't really cut it by now.

Tink is underwhelming by design because its stats failed it. Plain and simple. Y'all can't convince me that giving it 105 or even 95 Atk would break this mon.

 

[pika pal]

Saying underwhelming meanwhile I'm sitting in the Singles comp crowd and Tinkaton's getting a lot of mileage is kind of a funny experience to watch. Most mons with those stats are lucky to break NU unless they're really more than the sum of their parts.

The thing to remember is that the Hammer is where all Tinkaton's power stems from, and without it it's a tricky little gremlin and should be played as such. You can't bruteforce its opposition unless they just don't respect Gigaton Hammer, it has to be sneaky.

If anything I think Tinkaton is one of the smartest approaches they have to this kind of design. With the Huge Power mons, they have to tread carefully because the ability can cause them to scale massively with any buff that affects their offense (Stats, Relevant Weather/Terrain, a generalized buff to a move they run, new offense-supporting mechanics or items). Tinkaton in terms of its raw power puts it all in Gigaton Hammer, so if they decide to give it a +10 ATK or some new item or ability, they can just adjust Gigaton Hammer down from 160 to 140 BP for example to maintain the same "nuke" output while improving its other options on the side. Starting with most of the power in the Signature Move means less fallout of this Mon needs tweaking, and as much as I think it's oversaturated, it does make sense if Gamefreak wants to try and experiment with stuff that they can't be sure will be fine on their first go-around. Look at the centralization of stuff like Lando-T or Incineroar, which mostly rely on "generic" or shared traits, compared to something like Mega Kangaskhan: one goes relatively untouched and is mostly affected by the Meta around it elevating things they might not play into as well (like Urshifu who's its own can of worms), while the other is something mostly built on an exclusive ability that GF is free to nerf if the goal is "Hit Mega Kanga" instead of "Hit Parental Bond/Intimidate/Sleep (Smearlge's sins to Darkrai)".

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

If anything I think Tinkaton is one of the smartest approaches they have to this kind of design.

I agree. It's a really interesting move and the design overall works really well.

I just wish they had committed to it a bit more.

 

[ant4456]

For Mythicals, I think story and a place in the setting is fine and even to be expected. What distinguishes it for me is how widespread that story is within the universe vs a Legendary. To go over what I think is a good and what I think is a bad example for some comparison (mostly going off main game depictions because Anime Movie stories and loose continuity are a mess alongside Spin-offs)

• Darkrai is a Mythical Pokemon I like for having a clear lore and place for existing within the World, characterized by the fact that the world's people have little idea or frame of reference for it. You the PLAYER understand it with clarity (especially when Arceus lays it out in Platinum's Encounter), but to the characters it's just an enigma on Newmoon Island that they're not even clear is a Pokemon specifically. There is a widely unknown story that the Player/Meta viewer learns but remains just an unwitnessed Myth diegetically.
• On the other hand, I very much dislike something like Diancie which is known by someone to the point they can have people roaming around searching for information about it and evidently not be met with "what the heck are you talking about?" This makes it sound like a standard Legendary in a sense, as it's well known enough to believe is real and search for rather than write off as a tale or a phenomena.
• There's also odd cases like Zeraora or Zarude where they don't really have any major story going for them, known or unknown to the world, and just feel like they're Mythical as a marketing ploy very transparently. These feel weak in a different manner because there isn't really even a "Myth" for the Mythical, and it almost brings into question how arbitrary the "Legendary" status is for anything besides "specifically 1-off/divine" Pokemon like Groudon/Kyogre or Xerneas/Yveltal/Zygarde as opposed to depicted-multiples like the Kanto Birds. At that point what makes them different from "mundane" species with great power or folklore/urban legends of their own like Banette being an animated Doll or Volcarona worshipped as a Sun God?

Pecharunt as our most recent example kind of falls in a weird grey zone for me: the Story it's connected to is a very well known one with the Loyal Three (I wasn't clear if the story TPC shared on Youtube is referenced or known in the games themselves or was just audience context), but Pecharunt itself is so obscure that no one remembers it existing nor connects it with certainty once it does make itself known again.

Ultimately I think Mythicals benefit most from having a clearly defined story or lore that the world itself doesn't/barely knows anything about even on the level of a "probably made-up" dismissal.

I don't agree because Mythicals feel explicitly the opposite.

Legendaries are supposed to have a clear place in the world, Pokemon that are often not seen by most people but have cultural significance. I'd go as far as to say Darkrai showing itself to people ruins its appeal to me. Why should it have a "clear place" in this world? That's the opposite, if you asked me, of what it means to be a Mythical.

Discounting the anime since I don't see it as the same canon, and then we'd also have to go all over the place:

Celebi doesn't have a "place in this world", neither did Mew, other than being used by Team Rocket to create Mewtwo. Even then, it was supposed to be uncatchable and it really serves little other purpose, in most media kinda just showing up and existing in Kanto. Jirachi is sleeping and serves to just be an interesting Pokemon in the game. Manaphy is a reward for a spinoff, Arceus is a God but also doesn't really have a defined part of this world.

Shit, even after an entire Arceus game, its role in the world is not really shown to be clear at all. In fact they basically confirm that the Arceus we know isn't even its full form, and we will never know what it is. My problem with most Mythicals post Gen 5 isn't that they're not placed into a point in the world, since in my opinion the best mythicals are the pixies with incredible power that don't actually do much.

Mew, Celebi, Jirachi and Victini. The DNA of every Pokemon, time travel, granting wishes and guaranteed victory. These are all insane powers, more powerful than Darkrai by a mile, but they didn't have them just maliciously doing things to humans since that doesn't make sense for the Vibe. These people aren't normal Pokemon, ie. they aren't entrenched into the world's regular ecosystem, and they're not legendaries - they aren't a part of the massive collective of Pokemon that impact the world day to day.

I think after Gen 5 mythicals as a status kinda started sucking and I still think mythicals in gen 5 mostly sucked. Genesect is literally just Gen 5 Mewtwo, why is it now a Mythical? It's the same story basically. Would Mewtwo be a mythical? Volcanion doesn't seem to be very elusive frankly and it seems to do less than Heatran.

Hoopa is I think one of the only modern mythicals that really fits the bill of what the term used to mean. I like Magearna as a Pokemon, but it being a mythical doesn't seem to make sense to me, and how you get it is boring and lame.

I want mythicals and humans to not really interact much outside of being caught by the protagonist if that's even what it's about. If you think about the Pokemon world's ecosystem as different audio channels, mythicals should be invisible and not interact on either the channel with legendaries or the normal ecosystem- they should be their own weird oddities, reminders that this world can have a time traveling God pixie right behind that tree and you wouldn't even know it.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

tl;dr It'd be weird for you to have met Cresselia but only been told by her now, as opposed to alluding to a party you may meet later while foreshadowing their all-seeing nature/knowledge.

Me: *captures Cresselia and adds her to my team*

Me: Good to have you on board, girl! So, anything important I should know about before we begin our journey together as Pokemon and trainer?

Cresselia: ...nah, not really.